I’m not one who would ever ask questions about a young girl’s sexuality. But I can see why folks who know anything about Roz and Robin would expect that Riley will wind up involved in some kind of sexy shenanigans eventually. Had Riley been from Joyce’s family, how likely would it be that someone would ask sex questions about her? That sort of thing literally comes with the territory.

1. The age of consent in the US varies between 16-18, depending on state. And the chances of picking a random New England state with an age of consent of 16 are higher than the chance of picking a Deep South state with an age of consent of 16. And if you think that 16 is “sickeningly low” then don’t ever travel north to Canada. Their age of consent is 16 nation-wide, which was just raised from 14 five years ago.

2. Based on her drawing above, I do not think that any conclusion can be drawn other than noting that she is visibly displaying developed or developing secondary sexual traits. For all we know, she could be the mysterious missing middle sister.

3. She’s a cartoon. She doesn’t have an age. She’s just a drawing. She doesn’t even have a dorsal half yet because it hasn’t been drawn. She also can’t be too young for you because you and she cannot interact, as she is a 2-dimensional impressionistic representation of a fictional entity. Wanting to get jiggy with this particular representation is no more and no less disturbing than lusting after Jessica Rabbit, Fluttershy, Optimus Prime, or the Brave Little Toaster. Nothing is being defiled here except an idea by a thought.

I dunno, I think for #2, that could just be the cut and fold of the shirt she’s wearing. Same as guys’ jeans still have an outward sag in the crotch even when a girl wears them.

Just from the facial features (telegraphing a character’s rough age by the proportions of their face is about page 7 in any common or garden “how to cartoons” book after all) I’d peg her as a tween. The ambiguous chest development, squatter bodily proportions (edging in what yer mangaka would call chibi … or child-bodied) and utter lack of “figure” would support that.

Which is probably why she drew the lolicons out.

I know that adolescent development is a crapshoot, and even in real life you can have 11 year olds who are taller and look more “developed” than tardy 17 year olds – as well as even knowing at least one adult of my own age who seems still quite child-shaped thanks to a hereditary hormonal disorder – but taking the average of the accepted norm gets you a creepy answer. It’s better to err on the side of caution until you actually -know- after all. (And advanced physical condition is little excuse anyway, as usually they’re still mentally underdeveloped, and the brain just isn’t geared up for that sort of thing, or properly able to consent to it, at 11-12).

Re #1, Nowhere in the US having an AoC under 16 is news to me though, is that a recent development? Last I saw there was at least one state each at 12, 13, 14 and 15. Then again, I never knew of it being 14 in Canada (…thus is it still 12 in Spain?), so could be wrong.

*shiftily looks from side to side* … no I don’t know “too much” about this stuff. I saw it on a T-shirt on TShirtHell.com at some point.

And re #3 … the rule34 website exists. The contents of that are all you need to know on this iffy subject. All they need is a disclaimer saying that “all characters depicted are over 18″…

That must have been a very long time ago. A page copyrighted back in 1999 has some states at 14 and 15, but there’s no Deep South bias, actually Deep South states are on the high end.
Many states have “close in age” exceptions, where for example the general age of consent is 16, but 13 is legal for a 16 year old but not a 17. I suppose a very badly written web page might say “age of consent 11!!!” while leaving off “If you’re 14 or under”.

Most First World countries are in the 14-16 range, Spain at 13 last I heard (recently raised from 12). The Dutch had “16, or 12 if the parents consent” but I think they changed it to just 16.

“In 1880, the age of consent was 10 in most states but ranged from 7 in Delaware to 12 across nine states and the District of Columbia”

Seven… SEVEN?
I just… what… why even bother having the rule in the first place? And who came up with it?

You can make arguments back and forth between 14 and 18 (and hell, even down to 12 in some cases) on the basis of physical and mental development and a bunch of other bodily and social factors, but 7 is very very much in the Child Zone.
(And, heck… 10? In “most states”? Just how desperate were they to swell the population, at all costs?)

That hasn’t been the case in about a century mate. You must have been looking at historical data. And it wasn’t just the south back then, it was everywhere. There was a state that had it set at 7 back in the 1800s. I think it was Michigan. Something north and middle of the country.

I completely disagree that someone who wants to have sex with Jessica Rabbit are just as bad as someone who wants to have sex with a cartoon child. Just because they are both fictional doesn’t mean that everything about them is irrelevant.

No, but the fact that her age is unknown does mean it’s unfair to blame people as if you can conclude that they do know it. Asking what her age is is not obviously worse than asking the same thing of, say, Dina.

I wouldn’t say a victimless crime so much as a morally neutral act. It doesn’t hurt or help anyone. It just makes people question what kind of person you are who would want to do it, or try to justify it, or admit it to strangers on the Internet. It’s like being a racist, or a food blogger, or a Republican: Just because you’re allowed to doesn’t mean you should.

That’s a little unfair given that the New England states in question are much smaller and less populous than the southern ones – and although Texas itself is currently at 17, there’s a lot more of the contiguous US landmass taken up by legal-at-16 southern states than by northeastern ones. There’s a continuous swoop of them from South Carolina all the way round to Kansas, a trip through which could take you a couple of days on the road. Separated from their northern neighbours by the wedge of Tennessee and North Carolina (both at 18), and bookended with a left-parenthesis of 17-y/o stats from Louisiana up to Colorado, and back round to Illinois.

If you were to just stick a pin in the map and have it come up “16”, there’s about an even chance it’d be either an eastern state below TN/NC, an eastern one above them, or a northwestern one.

This is all so much bluster, though. 16 isn’t so bad, seeing as you may well be living by yourself in some situations at that age, and thus should be capable of taking charge of your life decisions. What’s a bit iffier is south of the border, in Mexico, where 12 thru 15 proliferates, and in at least one district the rule is basically “old enough to bleed is old enough to breed” (or possibly “if there’s grass on the pitch, play ball”, if we want to be gender-equal)…

Oddly, this isn’t the case in the rest of central america, which follows a more US-like pattern, apart from a single instance of 15.

I’m fairly certain we’ve never seen him. I don’t think we have any information about him at all in this universe, except that he apparently doesn’t have any sons. Given the track record, I think it’s unlikely that he’d be less shitty than in the Walkyverse, though.

Riley is thirteen different kinds of adorable, and i hope she becomes one of those characters i look forward to seeing, not one i dread. Joe could whip up a machine in the Walkyverse to allow Leslie and Robin to have a biological daughter. Then she could be in the next generation of Squad 128. Bobby, Riley, Donna… It’s be great.

Wow. The justifications by a few people about how it’s “not that bad” to be sexualizing a younger cartoon and how it’s the same thing as lusting after Jessica Rabbit? That’s complete horseshit. Yes, they aren’t real people, but you sexualizing them indicates what you’re attracted to, lines or no. If I took a picture of Olivia Wilde and rendered it into sketch lines, I’m still gonna think she’s hot. She’s Olivia Wilde. She’s hot in any depiction. I say that to say, while sexualizing a cartoon isn’t any sort of crime, no matter the cartoon, it’s still indicative of what you’re sexually attracted to. And yes, you being sexually attracted to them, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to go out and do something like that with an actual child. It’s still a pretty sick thought. Not illegal. But fucking sick.

She’s so tiny and adorable. I want to pat her on the head and send her off to run and play with other equally tiny, adorable children. If you add in some puppies and kittens (or other baby animals of choice) we would all be dead of cute overload.

Not that I approve of lusting after underage characters, but if you guys are even slightly off-put by the idea that someone else might do it, you haven’t watched any anime. They sexualize the hell out of their junior high-aged characters.

Seriously, though 1) if an act is only considered evil if no greater evil can be found, I fear for this world. 2) that’s not my culture, and apparently, that’s not Willis’s culture either. By way of another analogy… why won’t you hold my hand? Straight guys in South Africa hold hands like all the time!